Govt won’t drop carbon floor price: Greens

The Australian Greens insist there will be a floor price when the carbon tax transforms into an emissions trading scheme in 2015, despite reports the federal government is looking to scrap it.

Greens leader Christine Milne was commenting on an ABC Radio report that federal Labor was "secretly negotiating to dump or at least dramatically rejig the proposed three-year floor price".

The ABC cited three separate unnamed sources as confirming the reports.

The reports came as Prime Minister Julia Gillard questioned the Coalition’s commitment to axing the carbon tax should they win the next election, saying that history suggests it will not be wound back.

“Great reforms endure and in the end everyone says they were a great idea,” Ms Gillard said in Sydney on Wednesday.

“This day may seem a long time away whilst we’re in the midst of this debate, but in 12 months’ time how smart will it look to be promising to bring a shuddering halt to the investments that are being made in solar energy and other renewables, or to throw people who work in new cleaner businesses out of their jobs and onto the streets?

“How smart will it look to take tax cuts off working people who are better off because of them, particularly when the opposition promising to do these shocking things believed in putting a price on carbon when it was in government?”

Ms Gillard told the left-wing think tank the McKell Institute that every Liberal leader had previously supported putting a price on carbon.

“Perhaps history is a better guide than today’s histrionics,” Ms Gillard said.

The Snowy Hydro scheme, started by the Chifley Labor government, was “one of the greatest nation-building achievements of the 20th century” in Australia, she said.

Then opposition leader Robert Menzies “wavered and found excuses to raise questions” on the Snowy bills in parliament but he did not wind back the project in government.

Native title laws, passed by the Keating Labor government, had also weathered controversy.

“In the end, doomsayers always have to admit they are wrong,” she said.

Senator Milne confirmed her party was in talks with the government regarding the floor price but denied it would be scrapped.

"No, the government's not walking away from a floor price," she told ABC Radio on Wednesday.

"We've legislated for a floor price but there are regulations that have to be brought in."

Independent MP Rob Oakeshott said in May that the floor price should not be introduced to allow Australian companies to buy international permits if they are cheaper.

Mr Oakeshott originally agreed to a floor price as a member of the multi-party climate change committee.

"Whatever Rob Oakeshott does is up for grabs at the moment," Senator Milne said.

"After all, he did renege on one of the agreements we had in relation to the burning of native forests."

The floor price is set to start at $15 a tonne and rise by four per cent a year until 2018, when the market will set the cost of permits unconstrained by either a floor or ceiling.

It is meant to ensure there is no shock when the fixed-price period ends in mid-2015 with a unit costing $25 a tonne.

Parliamentary secretary Richard Marles said scrapping the floor price was “not on the cards”.

“There is no talk within the government about having an amendment of that kind,” Mr Marles told Sky News on Wednesday.

“This has been legislated and the legislation is now in place.”

He said the carbon tax will have only a small impact on the economy and people will be compensated for price rises.